Pride
by Daisypaws2004
Summary: Zack is trying to work on his dissertation, but he's having an off night. When all of his other motivations fail, he turns to the one thing that never will.


As a _Buffy_ fan, I could never watch _Bones_ because it was too weird to see David Boreanaz out in the sunlight. It always looked like a good show, but I avoided it skittishly for six years. Recently I watched a few episodes of the 6th season with my boyfriend, and I got hooked. I watched the whole 6th season (actually bought HuluPlus just for that purpose), and then went back to the first season.

And that's when I fell in love with Zack Addy. My poor boyfriend.

I know I'm several years late, but my infatuation with Zack, and my anguish over his leaving the show, are fresh. I hope there are still some Zack fans out there to give me feedback on my writing, and let me know of some great Zack fics out there.

This story is set in around the time of the 1st or 2nd season, when Zack was still a floppy-haired grad student. I don't own anything; if I did, Eric Millegan would still be on the opening credits.

Grad student Zack Addy leaned his temple against the window of Hodgins' Mini Cooper. He squinted against the setting sun as the vibrations from the road bounced his head gently against the sun-warmed glass. In the drivers' seat next to him, Hodgins had donned a pair of aviator shades and was twirling the radio dial. He settled on a station playing "Gold Digger" by Kanye West, and nodded his head along to the beat. He heard the sulking figure next to him start to hum along, and a grin played across Hodgins' face. The 24-year-old genius would never admit to knowing any popular songs, but he rode with Hodgins to and from the Jeffersonian at least six days a week and had picked up on the melodies they frequently heard on the radio.

"Got any plans tonight, Z-man?" Hodgins asked as he stopped at the gates to his mansion and typed in the key code.

"I plan to work on my dissertation."

"You say that every night. Is that really all you do?"

"Why would I tell you that I plan to work on my dissertation if I were doing something else?"

"You can't just be working on your dissertation. I know you don't watch the TV I bought you, but you've got to take some breaks and chill out sometimes."

"I 'chill out' by thinking and writing about synthetic wound reproduction. I will at some point take a 10-minute break for dinner."

"I chill out by relaxing poolside with a long-legged brunette. A beer in my hand, a fancy drink with an umbrella in hers…"

"I get the picture. You are going to invite your latest girlfriend over to drink alcohol and engage in sexual intercourse. You likely will not conclude your interactions with her until after midnight, which means that you will be overly tired and extremely cranky when we leave tomorrow morning." Hodgins pulled the Cooper into the garage and killed the engine.

"It'll seem worth it tonight," the older man said as he and Zack climbed out of the vehicle, swinging messenger bags around their torsos. "You're probably right about tomorrow, but it always seems worth it in the moonlight."

"That is simply your brain's response to physical pleasure. When overwhelmed by intimate situations-" "Have a good one, Zack. Hope your dissertation treats you half as well as I'm gettin' treated." Hodgins saluted and grinned at his friend and headed for the side exit as the overhead garage door smoothly descended, darkening Zack's way to the staircase along one wall. He slowly ascended the stairs, fully aware that he was going to spend the next 5 hours working on his dissertation but not experiencing any feelings of enthusiasm. Zack Addy enjoyed his work at the Jeffersonian and was passionate, though not exuberant, about his chosen profession. He knew that the topic of his dissertation was fascinating within the field of forensic anthropology, and he desperately wanted to earn the first of his two doctorates so that he could become Dr. Brennan's and Dr. Hodgins' colleague.

But tonight was the fifth night in a row that he had come home from a stressful day at the Jeffersonian, and tomorrow would make six. Despite his attitude towards Hodgins' late night ahead, he had slept even less than his friend in the past week, working on his dissertation into the early hours of the morning more often than not. He entered the spacious, rent-free apartment and set his bag down on the marble countertop a few feet from the door. He then unlaced his sneakers, left then right, and set them on the floor beneath the counter, lining them up properly and tucking the laces inside. He padded in his grey-toed socks to the kitchen area on the other side of the counter, his wrinkled khaki cargo pants and baggy, grey button-down, with a white t-shirt peeking over the top button and covering part of his neck, blending in effortlessly with the generic white-and-beige interior. Hodgins had given him permission to paint the apartment, and had then amended his statement to say that he would pay to have the apartment repainted and redecorated, in whatever colors Zack chose. But Zack had never gotten back to him. The apartment was fine the way it was; changing the coloring of the walls would not make the place any more his home, or any less Hodgins' property, than it already was. Zack did not mind the apartment this way.

It did feel a little more oppressive than usual tonight. As the water boiled for his Ramen noodles, Zack walked into the second bedroom, also white and beige, which he used as an office, and turned his computer on. It only took a minute for it to load, and he opened his customary windows and documents when it did. The cursor on his dissertation blinked at him, eager for more words, and Zack stood, staring at it for almost 10 seconds before he accepted that the paragraphs he'd been working on very late last night were unnecessary to the paper. He sighed and copied all 6 paragraphs into a "graveyard" document intended for such redundancies. He had been doing this a lot lately. He was overthinking a task that he knew he was capable of completing before now. He need to, as Hodgins advised, "chill out."

Zack knew how to do many things, but chill out was not one of them. He did have a television, but there was nothing he particularly wanted to watch now. He had never mastered watching television for television's sake. He did have some books, most of them scientific, but academic reading just made him more self-conscious about his own writing. The most immediate thing to do was eat dinner. Maybe that would be enough.

But somehow, eating slimy noodles from the pot, even while sitting in a very plush, comfortable chair that someone in Hodgins' family had picked out long ago, was not enough to unwind and re-focus. It appeared that it would be one Those Nights.

After washing and drying his dinner things, Zack walked to his bedroom and locked the door, even though he knew logically that no one but he was ever in the apartment. He turned on the small light next to his bed, and from a drawer in his nightstand removed a stack of photographs, still stored in the envelope in which they had been given to him. The photographs featured Zack, Hodgins, Angela, and Dr. Brennan before Agent Booth had come into the picture, before Dr. Saroyan had become their boss. They were friends; not that they weren't now, and not that Zack did not enjoy having more people around to be his friends. But the friendships had become more complicated with the addition of new people, and Zack missed the days of sitting across from Dr. Brennan all day, occasionally exchanging a comment about the bones they were studying or the odd behaviors of Angela or Hodgins, before Dr. Brennan started leaving the lab daily to talk to Agent Booth in his office, or perform fieldwork – Booth's job, not Dr. Brennan's – for a case.

The pictures were from a company picnic, which had seemed so silly at the time, but which now produced such fond memories. The four of them, in various combinations, made silly faces at the camera and immortalized the friendly feelings they harbored under their professional exteriors, even Dr. Brennan and Zack. Zack did not understand the point of smiling for photographs, because he rarely smiled in real life and did not see why photographs should not reflect the truth. But, at the prodding of Angela and Dr. Brennan, he had draw his lips up and tried to smile, resulting in more of a grimace which the other three picked up on and imitated. In one of the sillier pictures, Dr. Brennan was sticking her tongue out at the camera. Her tongue was especially red from something she had eaten that day, and the way she curled it at the camera made up for the whole truth thing.

He removed this picture from the stack and propped it up against the light, shifting his weight so he faced his white, wooden headboard. He took a deep breath, and felt apologetic – not towards a religious dictate that he could not believe in, but towards his mentor, his hero, his superior. She would probably be furious to know that Zack thought of her in any way other than professionally, but there would be no way for her to know.

His eyes focused on the light blue eyes of the woman in the picture, Zack unbuttoned and unzipped his khaki pants, and drew himself out of his plain white briefs. He stroked absentmindedly a few times, staring at Dr. Brennan's beautiful face and thinking about the interactions they had shared earlier that day, before fixing his glance on her tongue. He became more methodical in his stroking – tip to base, tip to base, a full second to complete a stroke down and up his hardening penis. Wrapping as much of his hand as he could around himself, he hunched forward. His left hand hung limp at his side, because he could not imagine any tenderness from even an imaginary woman besides the increasingly tightening pulling on his reproductive organ. His eyes tried to close, but he fought to keep them open and staring at the photograph on the table. Dr. Brennan. Dr. Brennan when they worked together all day, every day, with no distractions. Dr. Brennan when she leaned over him, letting him sniff her perfume or see the fabric of her lab coat strain across her curves, before Agent Booth inevitably waltzed in. Dr. Brennan when she complimented his work, laying a hand on his shoulder or – once! Even though she had been a bit distracted- tousling his hair. Dr. Brennan dressed for a donor event in a tight, shoulder-bearing dress. Dr. Brennan dressed in a Jeffersonian-issue jumpsuit, staring at a new set of bones with a look of total concentration in her eyes. Zack spliced the images together – Dr. Brennan dressed up for an event, staring him down with her blue eyes, running her fingers through his hair, assaulting him with her scent, letting his eyes linger on every curve, meeting his eyes over the lab bench, and swirling her soft, warm tongue around him. When the images came together like that, he couldn't help but grunt softly.

He screwed his face up in concentration, going faster now, and thinking of how he would spend the next day with the woman he was fantasizing about. He would arrive at the Jeffersonian to find that she had already arrived and begun to work, and he would take his place opposite to her on the platform. She would point out anything new that she had noticed about the victim's bones, and then he would check her work, but inevitably find it to be flawless. She would give him a task, usually cleaning the bones or looking for a specific feature, and then leave to meet up with Agent Booth. Zack would work on the bones until Dr. Brennan came back for his report, and he would always hope that he had something new to report to her and make her proud of him. If he did, he would be rewarded by a kind word or a slight smile. What if, instead of a kind word or a smile, she were to brush her lips against his neck, or cup his cheek with her hand, or squeeze his hand? What if she were to be so proud of him that she kissed him on the lips…or the throat…or his-

Zack shuddered and finally used his left hand to catch his ejaculation in a tissue. He felt hot and cold at the same time, tense and loose, like he always did after achieving orgasm. His neck was a little sweaty and his breathing had increased while thinking about Dr. Brennan expressing her appreciation for his work in the middle of the Jeffersonian. He cleaned up the minimal mess he had created, refastened his pants, and walked into his office, where he spent the next 5 hours working with ease on his dissertation before finally returning to his room to sleep.

The next morning, at 6:35, Zack climbed into Hodgins' car and rested his temple against the glass while Hodgins drove towards work.

"Man, I feel like crap, but my night was totally worth it."

"Did the brunette perform to your satisfaction?"

"Well that's a weird way to phrase it, but yes, my evening plans led to an interesting night." He chuckled. "What about you? Hot night with the dissertation?"

"You could say that," Zack responded with a stoic face.

"Man, that thing is eating up any time you could have not to be a robot. Why is it taking you so long to bang this out?"

Zack normally would have bristled at the mention of the length of time it had taken him to reach this point of his dissertation, but he knew that Hodgins would understand his reasoning.

"Dr. Brennan will take another grad student after I receive my doctorate, and then another after he receives his. I want my dissertation to be a testament to all of the time she has allowed me to work with her and learn from her. I also want it to be the best dissertation any of her grad students ever writes." Hodgins grinned.

"You're pathetic, Zack. No one reads dissertations, not even the research advisor."

"You are wrong, Dr. Hodgins," Zack responded calmly. "Dr. Brennan will read mine, and she will be incredibly proud of me."


End file.
